sjh - mountain biking linux geek spice - mtb / linux / canberra / cycling / etc

Steven Hanley hackergotchi picture Steven
Hanley
About

email: sjh@svana.org

web: http://svana.org/sjh

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Tue, 21 May 2013

Another ride to Kosciuszko (almost) - 11:30

Open Alpine Spaces (fullsize)
 I have not been putting photos and links up on my diary from rides and stuff happening in the past year or so much. I really should get back on to doing that. It has made it hard to find the reports when I want to find them.

A group of us planned to try the ride to Kosci in two days again, like we tried in 2010. We had a bit of a route change this time and a larger group of riders.

With two groups of riders and a bit of route confusion at some points we got through the first day pretty well and relaxed into the overnight camp at 3 mile dam again. Day 2 was likely to be harder but more straight forward. We made it through almost to Guthega but ran out of time to ride up to Charlotte Pass and on to Rawsons for the walk to the summit.

The ride is spectacular and has reminded me I should get up to the snow on XC skis again for some more time in the mountains in winter in these areas. I also think if I try this ride again I will ride a bike with gears, the single speed was somewhat challenging often.

Photos and more words here.

[/mtb] link

Wed, 12 Dec 2012

Influence of riders - 22:36
More bike themed stuff, today I received a birthday gift from some friends that really got me remembering some of the awesome mtb memories over the years. They gave me the Hans Rey 25 years or riding adventures book (it can be seen at the top of this page currently) which is an amazing book and I really love being reminded about many of the Hans Rey things I have seen/read about/etc over the years.

It does not feature a mention of his visit to Canberra (I remember it was on the news here) and his subsequent visit to the national champs at Thredbo back in the 90s. It probably was not fascinating enough to have photos of him riding over tables in Weston park in the book. However he is definitely a rider that has featured heavily in my mountain bike world view since I got into mountain biking in 1992.

It is really cool to see stuff these days with videos of Hans, MacAskill and Peat doing rides (multiple generations of awesome rider in one ride). The easy availability of video now opens up a lot of great riding scenery and riders to be easily viewed but the book makes me think back to earlier times.

I was proud to own and ride a GT in the 90s and a big part of the reason was I was a huge fan of Juli Furtado (she made me want to own a Xixang, and I just found a recent Juli Furtado interview on Bikeradar I somehow missed in 2009) and of course Hans Rey influenced my love of the brand. Other riders back then (as an impressionable teen) definitely had a big influence on me. Tomac influenced all mountain bikers in the 90s, Indurain also featured heavily (though I never got in to road riding myself in the 90s, I followed the tour pretty religiously from 1992 onward).

Since I was volunteering at Majura when Cadel won National MTB Championships there I have been a fan of him, and of course now days I am a huge fan of Marianne Vos. I guess if I keep thinking about it I can probably pinpoint more riders over the years. I really like O'Grady and it goes without saying I am a Jens Voigt fan (are any cyclists not fans of Jens?). Though I suspect I am showing my cycling age pointing out how heavily the likes of Furtado and the Hans Rey of the early 90s influenced me. Still lots of fun to look back.

[/mtb] link

Tue, 11 Dec 2012

Practice good skills - 21:57
I seem to be sticking to riding related stuff again, big surprise. I have been reading a rather awesome book Ben L loaned to me. Teaching Mountain Bike Skills by Lee McCormack. It really is an excellent book, helps back up a lot of the things I recall learning when I did my first level PMBI qualification. However it also has some great new tips and ideas. All of this again gets me thinking of ways people can and can not improve their bike handling skills.

Talking with Ben about it there are a few interesting things to think about. Practice is awesome, however practicing bad skills is not (Lee points this out quote a bit). Many people get to a certain level of ability to ride stuff and then simply stop trying assuming they are good enough. However we can all get better (ask professional downhillers, they will be the first to admit this).

When I used to ski a lot I tended to always try to have at least 1 week of lessons every year up at the snow as it all helps. The weird thing is now I do not go out of my way to get mountain bike skills training myself, I think I really should look into this. Another point Ben makes well is sessioning things helps you improve, if you practice getting better and better on something a lot there should be a benefit. Do not simply go for a long mountain bike ride, instead head out and repeat sections of Pork Barrel or Double Dissolution, try different lines, corners, speeds, and everything. Also maybe time yourself doing stuff.

The next point is pump tracks also help a lot, if you have one near you make use of it, head out and spend half an hour riding around it. You have a concentrated set of repeatable corners and bumps and things to do and you can hone your skills a lot doing this. When I was at a conference in Ballarat early this year I visited a friend of a friend's place for a bbq and they have a pump track. We had a great time playing on that. There are some fantastic pump tracks in public places in Canberra too (Gungahlin and Queanbeyan both come to mind).

Learning good skills means trying to repeat things that are faster and smoother, and it also helps following good riders when they are working on smooth and fast. The other thing is to simply have fun on the bike, the more fun you have the more you want to be out there. Though better skills defintiely increase the fun. I really need to read the rest of Lee McCormack's books now too.

[/mtb] link

Mon, 10 Dec 2012

Around the K in a day - 18:34

Only 100km to go (fullsize)
 Who would have thought, doing some long rides before stepping up to a really long hilly ride does help get you through it. Though I would like to think it is mostly the awesome bike that did it (it is all about the bike after all I hear).

I made it around the loop this time, 320km, 6500m of climbing. Not as impressive as Chris with his extra 80km and extra 700m of climbing, but I am not as impressive as Chris anyway so no big surprise. The photos from the day are at the normal sort of place. Around the K in a day 2012, one of the most fun and interesting road rides in Australia. Or as Beth said after finishing the day "The most epic, spectacular and amazing ride I have ever done".

Alex has said from time to time how much he loves this ride, it was a shame he was unable to come along. We will probably head back this time next year anyway, a good annual ride to do. In the image to the left I used the photo I took on Saturday from the same place as the one I used last year (two entries down in the diary). However image wise one I like is the three from Geehi over the years.


2012
2011
2004

I think these three photos show a nice evolution of bikes I used on this ride all from the same lovely river crossing at Geehi. Though I suspect Nathan and Bleeksie wondered what the heck I was doing when I pulled up to a stop there for no apparent reason on Saturday.

On another note, I commented on this in a photo comment, however Ed joined in the fun for the ride, Andrew H on the other hand went to a wedding (well okay he cycled up to the top at Thredbo too), who will be sledging who for being soft this week I wonder? Though Andrew may have gotten sick of the faffing at the first cafe stop and headed off on a solo mission sooner than Ed, so maybe he needs to do this ride by himself?

[/mtb] link

Sun, 09 Dec 2012

Thinking about context and scale in fitness - 21:59
Yesterday a few of us were out once more doing the Round the K ride, I took photos again and will post here when I have uploaded them tomorrow sometime. (also I am sure there is a bunch of other stuff to start putting her again from this year). During rides like this I again begin to think of scale and how we have a different perspective to many people.

On this weekend my friend David was once more competing in Coast 2 Kosci (I crewed for him last time in 2010), which is a 246km run from the beach up to the top of Australia. While he was out running Chris, Nathan, Aaron, Beth, Seb, Bleeksie, Ed, Matt, Roland, Paul and I set out to do a 320km road ride with 6500m of climbing.

To most of the population both these activities sound insane and crazy, even people who exercise a fair bit will think we are all loonies when they hear about some of the activities we get up to. However as Beth said when interviewed for an article about endurance mountain bike racing recently, it really helps to be surrounded by like minded people.

Sure Dave's run does sound a little crazy even to many of us, however the event inspires a lot of people and gets many in to bigger ultra running efforts, also once you do a 100km race it probably is not a huge stretch to start thinking about this sort of event. The same goes for the sort of ride we did, once you have done some longer hilly road rides like Fitz's Epic or Alpine Classic it is not a huge step up to go a bit bigger. (or be like Chris Thompson, he rode down from Charlotte Pass to meet us at 5:15am for the start on Saturday and then back up after the ride finish, why do 320km with 6.5k of climbing when you can do 400km with 7.2km of climbing?)

As many of us get most of our social life based around activities with the people doing them with us we all start to think it is kind of normal to be out having fun pushing our bodies for extended periods on weekends. Often many of us forget how little of this sort of endurance exercise the rest of the population gets up to. Aaron has a great t-shirt with the slogan "Hills Hurt, Couches Kill". It would be awesome if the population at large could get that stuck in their heads, no need for epic endurance efforts like we do, however the obesity problems in western society and the rising health costs due to inactivity are costing us all.

Of course the more people that get fit (if it happens) the smaller the gap between normal forms of exercise for us will be. Convince your less active friends to go have fun outdoors!

[/mtb] link

Fri, 09 Dec 2011

Around the K in a Day - 10:26

Only 100km to go (fullsize)
 Though I have previously been calling this the SLER loop/ride that does not make much sense as that was only what we called it on the 2004 attempt. The moniker a few people have been using recently makes a lot more sense. Around the K in a day.

The course is 320 km on road with 6500 metres of climbing (and descending) spread around the loop. Some of the best scenery in the Australian alpine region that is easily accessible and a fantastic day out on bikes.

We did it last time in Feb though my diary entries for it were a bit later. It seems the standard timing for us these days is to get around with a 5:15am start and finishing around 9 to 9:15pm. This time we had two half hour stops for food (Adaminaby and Khancoban), a shorter stop at Cabramurra and a few water refills from mountain streams.

I still did not make it this time around, I did feel I was able to however was riding a lot slower than the others on the hills. With a 20km climb to go before rolling mostly downhill to Jindabyne we managed to find a lift for me up the hill so the others did not feel bad leaving me behind as it got dark. Still a wonderful day out on bikes and I am keen to try again. Looks like we may try again on Feb 18, or Feb 25th (though I think I would prefer 18th if everyone can manage that weekend).

Anyway all the photos I took are online, fun was had.

[/mtb] link

Thu, 03 Nov 2011

The most awesome armwarmers ever - 10:21

Cycling Armwarmers do not get any better!
 I happened to mention back in June how awesome the kids I coach mtb to are, as well as their really enjoying riding and getting into the sport and improving their handling skills. As a thanks for teaching them they had tracked down a Dr Seuss jersey and gave it to me.

This time they have trumped that effort, they all notice how much I love riding my pink race mtb and my pink gear, so check this out, they hand printed a design with all manner of coloured bikes on a set of arm warmers, and the pink one is the coolest bike there. Thanks to Callum, Zoe, Declan, Tristan and Jack, these are awesome I am showing them off on the mtb ride tomorrow morning for sure.

I have long lamented the fact that cycling arm warmers tend to be boring, they are usually black, sometimes a solid other colour. Not many come with interesting designs (except commercial team trade colours, which are colourful, but not something I find interesting to wear) so to have such a great design and something interesting and so cool is really touching.

[/mtb/gear] link

Sun, 02 Oct 2011

Googong multisport challenge 2011 - 21:15
Sri Chinmoy moved the event a few weeks earlier in the hopes that being further away from the Scott 24 hour mtb race and to no longer clash with the Upper Murray Challenge. I have also been making an effort to remind people how awesome this event is in the hopes of convincing more to come and compete.

Fortunately something worked as this year the largest field ever rocked up to the race on the shores of the 100% full Googong Dam at 10am on September 18. Compared with last year I was severely lacking in fitness, with no fast paddling whole year (and not much at all since Geoquest), not much running for a while and my bike strength feeling weak I was in it for the fun of the event and not expecting to do too well.

Results from the day are available, plus photos and an event report but once again I would like to say anyone who was not there missed out on a great event. The paddle was actually 10km for the first time ever which would have pushed out the event times, however not to the extent that I was 30 minutes slower this year than last year.

However the top three places put in an awesome race, Dave S was always likely to come away as the winner barring mishaps of the people there that day. Sean had a fantastic race I thought to make 2nd, and though I was in in 3rd until Seb caught me near the end of the bike (he was paddling something akin to a bathtub). I had obviously pushed too hard for my current fitness levels and began cramping on the second run on the first downhill (after needing to stop and puke a bit twice in the first run due to pushing my pace too hard). Still I loved the event and having a strong field there made it so much better. Thanks to all of those who were there to make it great.

Fortunately the Sri Chinmoy team have said they will be running it again so I hope to see this event continues to get more interest now, it is a great event in an area not many people go to visit and I am glad to see it will remain on the calendar. Oh and impressive effort from Aaron and Alex who both did the remarkably tough, steep bike leg on their single speed mtbs.

Libby seems to think the race should be held in Feb as a lead up to the Jindabyne multi sport, I personally disagree as I like having a reasonable spacing through the year of these events. Yerrabi in May, Jindabyne in March and this event in September is a pretty good gap and I am not convinced people would use it as a Jindabyne Multi training event (too short and intense for soloists to get great traing) and many of the teams are not really out there at Jindabyne for the speed/win so much as the experience.

[/mtb/events] link

Sat, 01 Oct 2011

Try to remember what is normal - 21:28
At many times I really do need a reminder about what most of the population would consider kind of normal in the exercise realm. This became obvious over the last few months while reading the Canberra Times articles about the preparation for people training for the Canberra Times Fun run.

This is a stark reminder that to many people a 10KM run is a challenge and something they can not just go and do any given day. Another strong reminder of why my sister often tells me myself and the majority of my friends are freaks.

Sure I go around telling people I am not particularly fit, this is because of relative comparisons. I tend to compare myself to friends such as Dave and Julie, so obviously I am not that fit really. Friends that think it is normal to run a 100 KM ultra marathon then back it up two weeks later with a 24 hour rogaine. They have been known to head out for 84km training runs.

In the bike realm I hang around with the likes of Ben Henderson, Andrew Hall, Ed McDonald, and their ilk and am well aware they will beat the pants off me on the mtb or road bike. My friends and I will happily go do a 15 km Tuesday evening training run at faster than 5 minute km pace chatting away with hills and bush in the dark. This is normal behaviour for us. Same goes for riding, a 70 km road ride before work of a morning or 2 hours on the mtb is not strange.

I remember thinking at Dave's bucks party a few years back there was no one in the room who would not be able to do a 100km mtb event in under 7 hours or a marathon in under 4 (or both for most of them). Now I admit I do a lot of exercise, and a large part of it is I love having fun outdoors, and the further you can go the more of the outdoors you can fit into limited time. I like being able to have some friend suggest some trip or event and know I will be able to say sounds good let's go do it. And I will be able to do this activity and get through it with confidence and not find it too hard.

These activities include things like: the 320km Jindabyne to Jindabyne loop via Khancoban and Adaminaby, riding to the top of Mt Kosci in two days from Canberra off road (camping overnight in the bush), 48 hour adventure races, 360km non stop mtb races, 100 km ultra marathon in pairs (half each).

Though I run a lot more now than I did around 6 years ago I have been reasonably fit since I got into cycling seriously at the age of 12 or so, thus I would never think it impossible to head out for a 10 km run. Nowdays I would not even consider it particularly difficult to decide to compete in a 25 km run tomorrow with no specific preparation. Thus it really is a wake up call to see these multi-month training schedules to get people to complete a 10 KM fun run.

A previous housemate who had been running a lot (more than I do) had competed in the bush capital marathon (and did very well), so decided to enter the Fitzroy Falls marathon, however a week after that he had also entered his first ever 100 km mtb event and the following week was heading to Tasmania for a 4 day bush walk. To me this sounded like lots of fun and I said he should go ahead and enjoy it. He claimed I was the only friend he had that did not think it all rather over the top. Again it reminded me how different so many of my friends are as many of them regularly do similar series of weekends.

Last year one of my sister's friends had spent a while trying to convince her to compete with her in a 5 km run, however Jane was convinced she would not survive the event and instead suggested a triathlon in a team so she would only have to do the swim legs (a sport she does at her local pool often), (I thought otherwise about her ability to complete a 5 km run, but I have to remember I filter these things differently). I think it a laudable goal to do a triathlon in a team, I have never competed in a triathlon by myself either.

It is a huge wake up call to be reminded that most of the population would struggle to do a 10km run without a fair amount of preparation and would struggle with a reasonably paced 30km ride around the lake or similar. I was interested to hear from a friend in Adelaide recently who took his 8 year old son for a running race, 6 km, the first time his son had raced more than a 2km event at school sports or similar. And from the sounds of it they both had a great time doing this together. It is good to see the children of some of my friends who fit into the similar fitness category to me as they grow up surrounded by people who consider this normal.

Susie and Phillo's kids will grow up thinking 24 hour rogaine events and marathon runs are what everyone's parents do and probably emulate their parents to some extent, I already see Sam and Ben's daughters doing so much cool stuff, such as CORC Dirt Crit events from the age of two and a half to family fun runs, or multi day hikes though Abel Tasman National Park in New Zealand. I do however have to remind myself often, not everyone is like myself and so many of my friends, it is a bit like when university educated people so often only hang around with others with similar backgrounds and then are shocked at the sentiments coming from people who have a completely different life and background.

It is worth remembering to celebrate the Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations of the people out there (to use a Star Trek term, IDIC) even when it is surprising to us.

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Mon, 15 Aug 2011

Yell for Cadel, Australia's best ever XC mountain biker won the tour! - 21:38
I know it has been a few weeks, however I have not exactly been on a blogging rampage, what with having my first ever month of no entries here. However I should start writing again and this is something of note for sure. How exciting it is that Cadel Evans won the tour!

I have been a fan of Cadel for a while, I guess since reading mtb magazines through out the 90s and marshaling at the mtb National Championship races in Majura Pines in Canberra when he won the title here. That he won the MTB World Cup series for two years in a row, has also won the Road World Cup series two years running, won the Road World Champs and now the Tour de France it is fairly obvious to all he is the most complete successful cyclist Australia has ever produced.

I still remember watching him lead through some of the single track at Majura in 1997 from where I was marshaling, seeming to be riding on smooth pavement through sections I rattle and bounce over, sure it was a shame when he left mountain biking, I am after all a mountain biker at heart, but there were as we all know bigger achievements in his future, there is nothing in the mtb world that could possibly excite a nation the way he has the last few years.

For the entire tour this year Cadel and his team seemed to be well organised, know what they were doing and went about everything the right way. Leopard also dealt with the race well, thus as Andy Schleck has said it definitely seems the best rider did indeed win this year. The final time trial was an incredible hour of viewing, seeing Cadel so focused and confidant at the start and then he almost won the stage and blasted away everyone else. Of course seeing him get air on a time trial bike was pretty cool too.

I really hope this helps move Australian's recognition of bikes and cycling forward, the reception for Cadel in Melbourne on Friday was awesome, with St Kilda rd lined 5 deep on each side all the way along and then Federation square packed so full along with all of us watching who did not make it down. The media coverage across the board has been positive and pretty good. Now we can all hope for a repeat performance next year. Rock on Cadel.

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Mon, 27 Jun 2011

The Cat In The Hat - 15:07

Front of the jersey (fullsize)

Back of the jersey (fullsize)
 I obviously am teaching the most awesome group of junior mountain bikers around. Three of my students had noticed my love of interesting and fun jerseys in the months I was teaching them and for my instruction efforts they gave me this wonderful gift. A Dr Seusss cycling jersey, what a truly awesome gift. Thanks Declan, Zoe and Callum. Hopefully your mountain bike skills continue to improve and you continue to love riding your bikes, it is all about having fun on bikes.

[/mtb/gear] link

Tue, 24 May 2011

24 Hour Solo MTB Championships 2011 - 12:19

Andrew Hall finishing a lap (fullsize)
 If you have a look at the link to my 24 Hour Solo MTB Nationals photos page you can see the photos I took at the 24 Hour MTB Nationals CORC ran in April.

[/mtb/events] link

SLER Photos - 11:53

Climbing past Thredbo (fullsize)
 I finally uploaded the few photos I took back in Feb when a few of us went up to Jindabyne to do the SLER loop, find them here.

[/mtb] link

Tue, 17 May 2011

TNF100 in pairs, what was I thinking? - 16:32

Running along Narrow Neck (fullsize)
 Aaron and I headed up to the Blue Mountains on the weekend to compete in The North Face 100 Ultra Marathon in pairs this year. Julie won womens, awesome race against an international field (and beat her own race record by 36 minutes). David knocked 20 minutes off his PB too. The Blue Mountains were rather pretty so I took some photos and wrote about it here.

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 04 Apr 2011

ACTRA Multisport Rogaine 2011 - 16:24
Aaron and I did the ACTRA Multisport Rogaine yesterday and here are some photos.

[/mtb/events] link

Wed, 23 Mar 2011

Jindabyne Multisport Classic 2011 - 16:15
The event site is here with results a race report and photos.

I rocked up to compete in the Jindabyne Multisport Classic as a solo athlete for the fourth year in a row. This is probably my favourite race on the calendar, a gorgeous area to race through, really fun legs and a good attitude out on the course from everyone there.

In the lead up this year I have been unable to do much training from January 10 until the race day, with an injury and illness keeping me away from exercising much for 3 months I was definitely a bit underdone for the race.

All along I had ben hoping there would be a really strong solo field again, with the likes of Alex, David, Julie, Randall, Gary Rolfe, Aaron, Lee, Gary Rake, Ben Rattray all competing as solos. However for various reasons the only solos I knew who were competing ended up being Aaron, Lee and myself.

At the start line I was not looking forward to the swims, most years I have had a few months of doing at least 2 or 3 swims a week, this time I had swum twice since January 3rd and maybe 8 times since this race in March the previous year. I defintiely have to stay in the pool and put some serious time in to my swimming if I ever want to do this event really well.

1 Solo Female and 5 solo Men were at the start line, all of us obviously hoping to complete the day and have fun. Race start was 6:45am so we got going and I gave everyone entertainment or a cringe when I immediately went off in the wrong direction sighting on the wrong saddle in the distance while everyone else swam toward the first bouy. This was definitely a theme for me, going all over the place in the swims, in the end I lost 10 minutes or more to Aaron each time we did a swim through the day.

The first kayak following the swim is always a good leg to get settled in to the day and get used to the continuous moverment all day. This year my friend Kerrie (ENM as Gramps calls her, I think Awesome Nurse Muir is more accurate) had once again sepped up to the role of support crew for me, thanks to her for being an absolutely awesome support crew again this year, organised and keeping me moving well all day. She had me through al the transitions smoothly and encouraged me to keep going well.

Lee was unlucky enough to fall out of his kayak in this leg and I passed him there, the SES boats were both in the final 800 metres of the kayak so had not seen him fall out, I yelled at one of them to go have a look, in the end Lee said a fisherman helped him get to shore to empty the boat before continuing on. On to the run, which has less climbing and stays closer to the lake than the old first run I was soon passed by Sal and a few other fast runners on teams (I was already well behind the really fast teams due to my pathetic swimming)

The first run leg is still quite technical and a lot of fun, and it leads in to what in my opinion is the best leg of the day, the first mtb leg is rearkably technical and suits me down to a tee, if only it were 30 km long rather than 8km. There had been a lot of track work done on the trails here and the return leg of this ride toward transition had been improved a lot, easier and shorter but a heck of a lot of fun. I saw Aaron at the shared section of track so he already had a 15 minute lead on me here, due to my complete lack of preparation I expected this theme to continue for the rest of the day, he was racing well for a first time soloist here.

On into the second swim, the worst leg of the day (2.5km of swimming) I labored through that getting passed by a whole lot more teams and caught again by Sharon the solo female, however into the paddle I was able to move fairly fast again. Through the paddle I headed out on the second mtb leg, hoping to get some food down, a problem with my water meant I could not get much down for the leg however still felt pretty good on the whole. I saw Aaron again now with around a 23 minute lead on me.

Through the day I was fairly close to the teams Desciples of Ming the Merciless and Followers of Ming the Merciless, some of the children of the team members are those I coach mtb skills every week and they were cheering me through every transition all day which was awesome support from them and lifted my spirits. I got on to the long run feeling alright, stopped for my normal toilet visit at the thredbo river picnic ground to ligten my load for the climb and headed on up the hill.

During the climb two women from teams caught me up and Lee also managed to catch up, I picked my pace up a bit to stay near them, Lee however had not bought any water or food on this leg and suffered mightily for it, so ended up dropping off the pace ocne we hit the waterfall at the top. I thanked the women for their company as I had to stop to stretch out cramps near the end of the leg and then ran in toward the transition for the long bike leg.

Most years this leg is one of the most spectacular parts of the race, up into alpine grass lands near the Gungarlin river, however due to the river being too full and boggy terrain near it they had to change the leg to a ride up the road from Sawpit to Charlotte Pass before a car shuttle down to the lake again at Creel bay. This changed the dynamic of the race a lot, I appreciated the rest in the car and sitting at the swim start for an hour, however I missed the lovely long mtb leg. I was able to eat some solid food again and watched Aaron do his swim leg before I started. Some friends lined up someone to kayak next to me for this swim to keep me going straight, thanks to Tara and Michael for all of that.

The last few years the final kayak has been very windy, almost a case of surfing or crossing large waves for much of the 9.5km paddle. I borrowed Mark's surf ski for this leg rather than my Time Bandit, it was still windy up near Charlotte Pass so I assumed it would be windy ont he lake. As it turns out this is the calmest I have seen the water in years at this time of day, however better safe than sorry, I completed this leg in around an hour and only had the 5.5km run to finish off the day. I got moving and immediately felt my core muscles in pain with the jarring of running. Amazingly my legs felt fine but I could not pick up the pace due to the pain from the final paddle and swim in my core muscles.

Still I had at least 30 minutes on Lee in third and knew Aaron would already be finished so I settled in and tried to finish as fast as I could without too much jarring. Just as I neared the finish, Zoe, Declan and all the other kids that had been cheering me on saw me and rode and ran in next to me to the finish which was another awesome show of support from them. Finished in just under 12 hours, or just under 11 if you take off the hour enforced stop before the final swim.

Thanks to Kerrie for being awesome and supporting me, thanks to everyone who helped Kerrie out through the day. Thanks to Aaron and Lee for the race and thanks to Prachar and the rest of the Sri Chinmoy race team for this event, such a lovely course and such a fun day out. Easier and prettier than triple tri and less swimming, all good things.

Good to see a strong performance from Sharon the solo woman coming in around 15 minutes behind Lee too.

You should all put this race on your calendar nex year, it will be the weekend before the 6 foot track marathon and probably not clash with Huskisson or the Willo MTB race either. Fun to be had up in Jindabyne in early march 2012.

[/mtb/events] link

Tue, 08 Mar 2011

Buy known good quality, or avoid RavX at least - 18:00

Crappy RavX Gloves (fullsize)
 So a few weeks ago I decided to buy some new gloves, though not worn out some of mine were getting a bit old and rank. Also they tend to have no padding profile and work fine for mtb but I tend to think some padding helps on the road bike. I order some Serfas gloves from one shop, but they have still not appeared after a month at this point.

So while waiting for the Serfas and in need of some gloves the other week I purchased the pictured RavX gloves. They were cheap, and I think I found out why, I can not say much apart from do not buy these ever. The padding worked fine, however when I took this photo I had done 3 rides wearing them. One on the shopping/touring mtb to the fyshwick markets and back, around 20km. The next two were road rides, a cotter/uriarra loop and a climb from Jindabyne to Dead Horse Gap and back, so around 145km on the road bike. It is hard to see here, but looking at the enlarged photo I have circled the 4 places on the right glove and 1 place on the left glove that have already worn through or show serious wear signs (about to wear through). That both of the gloves have worn through the palm in less than 200 km of pretty tame riding is pathetic.

I have quite a few pair of cycling gloves, some of which have done over 2000km of fairly tough mtb riding and a lot of other riding in between, I have never seen a glove fail this fast.

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Fri, 04 Mar 2011

Another attempt at the SLER - 10:28
Back in 2004 a few of us headed up to Jindabyne to do what we were calling at the time the Silly Long Easter Ride, this is a 318km road ride in the Australian Alps region with over 6000m of climbing. It has been done by quite a few people since that time in two days, however only a few I knew had done the ride in one day (Davo, Ads, DeathMarch).

I have been keen to go back for a while, so Alex, Bleeksie, Greg, Chris and I were planning to do the ride last weekend. We headed up there and stayed at the Snowgums Jindabyne unit. I had the problem of a sore throat for two and a half weeks leading up to the weekend and was simply hoping it would get better by the time we were there to do the ride. Unfortunately the sore throat deteriorated into a cold and I tried to start the ride. As we did the first few climbs up toward Thredbo I realised I was not going to be able to continue all the way. At what was a fairly easy pace I was falling behind trying to conserve myself, once I made the decision to pull out rather than do the entire loop I started wasting myself a bit more to keep up all the way to Dead Horse Gap.

I want to do this ride so hope to return later in the year or next year and gt it done. Once I left the others I returned to Jindabyne, bought a newspaper and rested for most of the rest of the day. Slept for a few hours, read the paper and waited for the others to finish the ride.

After having some of the pies from Funky Pies from 42 Cafe in Nimitabel in December I was keen to have some more, I had not gone to the Canberra stockists. However I noticed on the funky pies website that the Jindabyne Bowling club sells them, so I headed there for some lunch. Vegan pies with a good variety, what could possibly be bad about that. It turns out they no longer stocked them, however there were a few left in the freezer so the chef prepared them for me, a little old and dry, however still tasty I was happy with that for lunch.

As for the ride, the guys hit Khancoban around 10am, Cabramurra by 2pm and Adaminaby before the bakery shut. Chris had started to pull away as his gearing made it difficult to climb slowly. Chris finished the ride by 8:10pm and the others pulled in at 9pm after a 5am start. Good to see, solid riding effort, I was jealous but with the Jindabyne Multisport classic 2 weeks later I did not want to make myself even sicker and possibly be unable to compete.

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Tue, 22 Feb 2011

Egos Like Hairdos at another AROC sprint - 15:50
Thanks to Ian and Aaron I was able to have another fun reasonably fast race in the recent AROC Sprint at Stromlo and the Cotter. I of course had a camera with me and took a bunch of photos. They can be found in the normal place.

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Wed, 16 Feb 2011

Olive Clips - 20:02
I was trying to find the correct name of the pink clips on the end of the Q-Spear rack bungee cords the other day. I got as far as "shock cord clips" but still was not getting too many results. I have a few purple clips I use on bike tow systems I bought at the Marine shop in Woden years ago, however the shop has since closed.

Fortunately one of my friends discovered they are called "Olive Clips" in Australia and are somewhat readily available at boating supply stores around the place.

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Tue, 18 Jan 2011

Withdrawl - 17:39
I do not know how people who do not exercise often can manage it. Of course this may have a lot more to do with my exercise addiction than I am willing to admit. Monday last week I had to go to the doctor to get a rather uncomfortable thing on the outside of my glute looked at and fixed. She ended up digging around with a scalpel and cleaning it all up. However the upshot of that is I ave been unable to do any exercise (cycling, running, paddling in order to avoid aggravating the wound and slowing healing, swimming to avoid infection) since Monday afternoon last week.

I did ride back to ANU from Belconnen after the work was done, but that hurt quite a bit and the Doctor was not amused. Since then I have not done much. I was able to ride to Fyshwick markets for shopping on Sunday and it only hurt a little bit. Now the wick has been taken out it seems to hurt less most days. I still can not sit on it but cycling seems to be getting better. Tomorrow I intend to do the morning road ride in an easy group and then ride to Belconnen for my next doctor/nurse appointment for a new dressing so hopefully that will not hurt.

I know I have been told that moving too much/vigorously may slow healing, however I really need to do something energetic and I like to think the same applies as with some other healing I have had to go through in the past, so long as it is not hurting it is probably not too bad for it and exercise is good for you so get out there and have fun.

The past few months I have tended to around 4 hours intense exercise on Tuesdays, more than 1 hour on Monday and Wednesday, around 2 or 3 hours on Thursday and usually about 1 hour of hard exercise plus the morning mtb ride on Friday. Going from my normal pattern to nothing is definitely quite challenging, hope to do something about that and see how it feels lets hope I can get back into it.

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Tue, 14 Dec 2010

Baldylocks at the Coast 2 Kosci - 11:37

Chris, Julie, Dave and I at the Summit of Kosci (fullsize)
 So this is not an event I competed in, however I was there as support crew to ensure Dave finished. The Coast 2 Kosci is an Ultra Marathon now in its seventh year. Starting on a beach near Eden it heads up to the summit of Mt Mosciusko and back down to the finish line at Charlotte Pass. So that is 240 km (actually 246) of running, mostly on bitumen/hard surfaces and the current race record is 26h01m.

Dave finished in 33h10m which for a first attempt and someone who has never run more than 125km in one go before is fairly impressive. Most of the people who compete are regular ulltra runners and it sounds like a few were wondering who this Baldwin guy was for much of the race. I took a lot of photos and have put them up on my Baldylocks at the 2010 Coast 2 Kosci Ultra Marathon page.

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Sun, 05 Dec 2010

Paddling at Googong Dam when 100% Full - 10:32

Water running over the spillway (fullsize)
 Aaron and I headed out to Googong for a paddle today, we ended up doing a good 19km paddle up to Washpen crossing. We had his camera so I managd to get some photos, have a look at the googong paddle photos, then head out there yourself for a paddle as it is pretty awesome.

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Tue, 30 Nov 2010

Another AROC Sprint, or more fun on the water slides. - 10:01

Ian and Aaron running to the slides (fullsize)
 Or maybe we should just combine the two. Tom and Al did on the weekend. The AROC Sprint race once more visited the water slides (the last time was around 2006 in the Friday night BC sprint race). The course was a lot of fun, and as always I had my camera with me so here are a bunch of photos.

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Wed, 24 Nov 2010

Fun ride into the alps - 17:30

(fullsize)
The group ready to leave Ororral		 Alex had the idea of riding an interesting looking off road route up to the top of Mt Kosciuszko over two days. With a few friends doing support to carry food and camping gear for camping somewhere overnight.

A bunch of us were keen to join in, so we set out to attempt this on Saturday November 20. We got up as far as 3 Mile dam for the over night camp near Cabramurra, however it took a while, the pace was much slower than expected on the alpine grass land based trails. We decided to turn around and ride home on Sunday rather than go deeper into the wilderness as we were not sure we would make it through to where a car would meet us in a reasonable time.

We all had a lot of fun and are keen to try at least the second day of riding if not the full thing again, maybe when the trails have dried out a bit so we can ride faster in the alpine areas. Photos from the weekend are online at my Canberra to Kosciuszko ride Nov 2010 page.

I have a GPS trace most of the way there and a few others have the full GPS trace of where we went (and a GPX file for the full planned route) which I can share if anyone wants to see it.

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Thu, 18 Nov 2010

Shopping/Touring/etc N+1 - 10:19

(fullsize)
Diamond back Topanga ready to ride		 As mentioned a few weeks ago, my sister has a new bike, as a side benefit of this I was able to take ownership of her old bike. This is a 1994 model Diamond Back Topanga frame, at this point everything except the headset and forks is newer though.

I have owned a Diamond Back Ascent previously (my first SS) and it is the model up from the Topanga, also I had another Ascent frame I had never built up so eventually sold it. Though this is the lower model it is a bike with history in the family and looks nice. I also hope it looks less appealing to bike thieves than some other bikes may.

After my cyclocross bike was stolen I no longer had a bike with a pannier rack mounted for shopping or similar (maybe the odd cycle tour). I have the black hardtail but it does not have rack mounts and I have never liked riding the aluminium hardtail that much. I have been thinking about selling the black hardtail for a while, however this bike should be a good keeper in my stable, I may still add mud guards to the bike, but it rides nicely, even with the silly long stem on it. I flattened the saddle after riding it this morning as it was initially did not feel quite right, everything else feels pretty good, though the narrow bars may also have to go eventually.

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Wed, 17 Nov 2010

How we all wish we could ride - 19:33
So most cyclists, and many others have seen the Danny MacAskill street trials video that hit youtube in April 2009. Since then there have been a few others, the last day or so a brand new one has come out that really is awesome.

Way Back Home is based around the idea of him riding areas from Edinburgh back to his home town on the Isle Of Skye. So the video is full of spectacular scenery as well as jaw droppingly incredible bike handling.

If you have not seen either video I strongly suggest watching them (even if you have no interest in cycling), the latest one also has a The Jezabels song on it which is a good bonus I reckon.

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Mon, 15 Nov 2010

Why I need to go back to Melrose and not be too stuffed to ride - 16:54
When I was in Melrose in SA earlier this year I was a little tired and worn out. Even with the rather interesting looking Fat Tyre Festival on I could not bring myself to get back on the bike and ride some more, instead I enjoyed the sunshine, beers and company in town.

However I found this video on the AMB Blog which has Chris and the AMB crew claiming Melrose is one of their favourite riding destinations. Have a watch of Melrose - The Film and you will see why a return trip appears to be necessary. Preferably not immediately after riding 360km the previous day.

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Sun, 14 Nov 2010

Another CX race in Canberra - 15:33
In July last year the vikings ran a cyclo cross race out at Stromlo. I was there racing and enjoyed it a lot. There was talk at the time of trying to run a series of them this year which would have been fun. Due to a whole host of reasons the series did not happen, however Simon and Simon managed to get another race happening this weekend.

I went along again and I think this was an even better set up for CX racing than last time. I no longer have a CX bike at the moment as mine was stolen earlier in the year. However they were allowing other bikes to enter. Though I could have ridden a mountain bike I decided I should have drop bars so rocked up to race on my commuter, the 1984 steel Apollo single speed road bike with mud guards. There was a smaller turnout this year, partly due to clashing events and things on, a less CX friendly time of year, less promotion the week before the event (Canberrans have a bad habit of deciding what to do the day before it happens) and a few other reasons.

I feel sorry for everyone who missed out as this was one of the most fun races I have done in ages. The course was set up around the Narrabundah Velodrome (Simon N got the idea when he saw a velodrome used in a similar manner at a CX event in Illawarra earlier in the year) and it worked really well. Jump boards to do your running dismounts over littered around the course, using the oval in the middle of the velodrome, the track itself and the hilly surface around the back of it to make an interesting but not too technical (ie beginners would have no problems) course.

Racing started at 12pm and they had 4 races over the following hours, a novice event (to get the feel for the track or to try out CX for some), a single speed event (there were 6 of us competing in that one), a masters race (I could not do that obviously) and then the open race. So for the $10 entry fee (MTBA license covered my insurance) I was able to do 3 short hard fun races (the longest, open race at 6 laps was around 40 minutes). It was a completely different feel to mountain bike events and different skills helped even. Also the course could be seen almost entirely by spectators from almost everywhere. They had a bbq and beer for sale which was great, I was able to refresh myself with a Boags after each race.

A crew from Melbourne rocked up, they race dwell and shared their experiences from running their own CX race series. Sounds like they have a good local scene with 120 or so people at each round. They have a format where there is a pure cross race and a separate event for all other bikes. Thus mtb owners can race but not in the CX only event. All sorts of things could work, however I think this was a great event and hope like heck something can be done to get a series of 3 races or so (May, June, July maybe) next year at the velodrome. They are planning at least one event in June and I would strongly recommend attending, whether it be to watch with beer in hand and cheer or rattle cowbells at people racing, or to compete. Fun is almost guaranteed, Simon was even talking about trying to get some earth moving equipment to make the course more interesting (soft sand/mud pits, some rolling lumps like found on parts of a 4X track (though not jump sized) and other features.

Anyway I had a great time and would like to thank Simon, Simon and vikings for another excellent event.

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Ride like a girl - 15:28

Ride Like a Girl (fullsize)
 When I first saw this jersey being worn by my friend Kath I thought it was rather awesome. However due to it being a commercial jersey and a company unrelated to me directly (AMBC) I was a little wary of buying one of the jerseys. In the end though I decided it was too cool not to own one.

The sentiment is there (Heather and Lib hand out cans of whup arse on a regular basis to myself and many others for example) and it works well with my theory that pink goes faster anyway. So now I wonder if I will last with a concerted effort to not purchase any more jerseys for a while.

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Fri, 12 Nov 2010

Jeffson Jersey - 12:10

Jeffson Custom Bikes (fullsize)
 With some of these jerseys you may think there is a theme appearing, which is lots of black. Obviously the perfect choice for coming into the Australian summer. To the issue of having lots of black jerseys, I guess i just have to obey Rule 5 in summer. As for the theme, do not worry the jersey I will put on the diary tomorrow will break the theme and return to normal race gear (for me).

This one, another purchase while in Rotorua, comes from Jeff Anderson at kiwibikes. A frame builder who had some rather cool bikes on display that he had built. I have been missing my CX bike a bit since it was stolen so decided I would get Jeff to build me a new CX frame. I sat down and talked with him about all the things I want to do with it and how I want to fit it out. He checked out my sizing and riding style and listened to what I did and did not like about my previous CX bike and about other bikes.

So in a few months I should have a new Jeffson CX bike, I got started on my accessory collection early with this jersey.

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Thu, 11 Nov 2010

Single Speed Worlds Jersey - 10:29

Front of the jersey (fullsize)

Back of the jersey (fullsize)
 Many people know I tend to have a cycling jersey addiction. I used to count all cycle tops (winter warm tops, and summer weight also) however I did an inventory of just the summer weight tops recently, I am now up to 30. Of those 30 I have purchased 4 in the last 6 weeks.

I thought I would upload the images of these new jerseys, just to keep my collection of jerseys online. There were two jerseys sold by the SS Worlds crew, the first one was a woolen jersey I thought looked somewhat boring. This one on the other hand looked cool, colours on the sides, kiwi influenced design, RSSS branding. So for a good price they were offering I got one.

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Wed, 10 Nov 2010

Rule 5 - 16:55

Front of the jersey (fullsize)

Back of the jersey (fullsize)
 So when we first learned of The Rules a few of us were quite a fan of some of them. In particular Rule Number 5. I openly admit I am not much of a roadie and do not obey rule number 1 (adhere to all the rules) however I like to think I do at least from time to time obey rule number 5.

As we are such fans of in jokes we decided to get the jersey pictured on the left made up and the website registered to display that particular rule. Of course I could not help putting a Jens quote on the collar as the man defines the rule. "Shut Up Legs"

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Sun, 31 Oct 2010

Photos from the SS worlds week - 15:58

Climbing a hill on the course in my baby outfit
 As mentioned the other week, I was in Rotorua for a while to have fun on bikes with friends. Coinciding with the 2010 SS World Champs and the 2010 Whaka 100 race. I am now back home and with the additional bandwidth available I have uploaded all the photos I took during the week. I also took a lot of shweeb photos I will upload separately, and have got a lot of helmet cam or chest cam footage of the single track fun to be had over there. I will get it in a nicer format/more manageable size before uploading that anywhere too. (4.5 GB from a Contour HD 1080p camera set at 720p Brent was using and 7.5 GB from a GoPro chest cam that Col borrowed from Liam at Swell).

My photos from the 2010 World Single Speed Championships are on the link.

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Thu, 21 Oct 2010

SS Worlds, Whaka 100 and the Rotorua Bike Festival - 15:56

Shane half way through setting a fast 52.4 second three laps on the shweeb
 So I am in Rotorua in NZ for 11 days for a holiday, this holiday takes in the Whaka 100 mtb race which I did on Sunday. Then a week long cycling festival and the 2010 World Single Speed Championships. One of the festival activities is a Shweeb championship for all the single speeders to enter. The photo to the left is from Shane's laps today, we are planning to head back for another go tomorrow.

I have not been updating much this week, and am definitely not providing as much entertainment on the blog as Burky and Coops from Swell on their Swell Design Group SS World Tour but thought it worth putting up a photo after riding the shweeb today. (Mikal insisted I get footage of it anyway).

I arrived on Saturday afternoon, the direct flight from Sydney to Rotorua made the trip here easy and I was able to be here in time for the 100 km race on Sunday. That was a hard race, I made my normal mistake of going out far too hard, average HR for the entire 100 km was 150bpm over 6h46m, however most of that is from having my HR above 170 for the first 50 km. I then of course began to realise I had gone out too hard once more and was suffering on the climbs (most of the hard climbs came in the last 40km of this event). Still it was cool to do a race taking in almost every good trail in the Whakarewarewa forest in one event. I had been hoping to come in under 6 hours however with the amount of walking I did late in the race up hills I was well over that.

Monday I had off the bike, wandering around town, settling in, recovering. Tuesday morning I headed out for a 42 km ride with Heather, Shane, Rob, Gaye, Juzzy and a few others. Each night so far here we have all been soaking up the atmosphere (and beers) in the Pig and Whistle and a few other locations. Morning coffee at Zippys every morning has also been a good start to the day.

Wednesday morning we headed out for a lap of the SS Worlds Course (it is a tough one, more climbing then expected, but I guess they have to break up the over 1000 rider field somehow). I grabbed some lunch and ran in to Col and Adam (mentioned above) some other Canberra riding buddies so headed out for another ride with them after lunch, getting 70 km on the single speed on Wednesday which was all good fun.

Today I had a chat to Jeff at KiwiBikes for a while in the morning about a new Cyclocross frame I am getting him to custom build for me (I miss having a CX bike). Had some lunch and was sort of thinking about going for a ride when Shane, Heather and I made plans to go do the Shweeb thing instead. Agroventures (run shweeb) recently were given a Google grant to develop the shweeb technology to implement it as public transport somewhere. After riding in it I can see that it could work out pretty well for that sort of thing. As well as being fast, dry, safe, away from traffic, it is a lot of fun to get around on. We are planning to go back tomorrow and I will get some better video footage then. Fun will be had (especially with some of the costumes (myself included) that I hear may be worn on Saturday for the SS race)

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Tue, 12 Oct 2010

Faith in your training buddies - 15:47
So this is a story (heard through the grapevine) I found most entertaining recently. When Michael "Bling" Matthews won the world under 23 road cycling championships the other week, a whole bunch of his training buddies were down there watching and cheering him on.

This bunch of his mates were watching on the final climb, they watched him come up the final climb in the bunch that remained at that point and said to each other. Cool he has won it lets go find a pub and celebrate. This was before he had gone through the formality of crossing the line in first place. Great to see such faith (rewarded too) on observing his form on the final climb compared with everyone else around him. Go Bling.

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An N+1 in the family - 13:15

Jane's new Kona Dr Fine (fullsize)
 So not a bike for me (though it is damn sweet, I almost wish it were), my sister Jane last got herself a new bike in 1994 when we returned from England. That is a Diamond Back Topanga. She has still been using that bike to this day which means it has had a long useful life (and will continue to do so, more on that later). However she started asking me a while ago about a new bike, most of her riding is a commute in Sydney to her work at Macquarie uni, grocery shopping and sometimes a cruisy weekend ride.

My recommendation for her was a flat bar road bike, set up to be a kick arse commuter. The bike I found for her (thanks to an excellent price from Maladjusted) was a 2010 Kona Dr Fine. Pictured to the left, I got full length fenders put on to make the commute experience more pleasant in Sydney wet weather and also the pannier rack as she carries her gear in panniers for the commute and grocery shopping.

The very cool thing about this bike (apart from it being fast, light, new, etc) is the internally geared rear hub, so it only has a single speed drive train exposed to the elements, also with hydraulic disc brakes it really should be bomb proof for lots of km without much maintenance work. Now I just need to add the bidon cage, U-Lock mount (for the new lock, so do not even think about stealing it from her, bastard bike thieves) and a pump mount or similar.

I am somewhat jealous, this is a very nice bike, though I guess one benefit is I will get the Diamond Back so I can turn it into my shopping/rough treatment town geared bike, so it does at least stay in the family.

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Tue, 14 Sep 2010

Photos from the SS Nats - 17:06
Though I wrote about this event on Sunday I had not uploaded photos yet. They are now online, not many but another rider asked to see them so here they are.

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Sun, 12 Sep 2010

2010 SS Nationals - Majura Pines, Hosted by COGS - 21:47

A possible new pink bike? 		After a few years of being keen to get to them, I finally made it along to the SS national championships this weekend, helped by the fact they were held in Majura Pines in Canberra. Canberra One Gear Society (COGS) hosted the event and 120 or so riders rocked up for a fun weekend.

My SS is not pink (though my race bike is) I wonder if I should get an upgrade, maybe to something similar to the bike pictured? The Hill climb and Time Trial were fun yesterday, then the novelty events were held, the photo was taken by Rob during the 16 inch crit races, which were in fact a race down a hill trying to stay upright on small bikes, possibly the most fun on a bike all weekend trying to balance on them had us all giggling a lot.

The traditional (well traditional for an SS race) XC race was on today. The beer shortcut cut around three and a half minutes off my lap time, so after doing the long lap the first time round to work that out I took the beer shortcut every lap after that. Five laps, 4 beers, around 21m per lap I think, though I may be a bit off with that as my gps stopped when drinking, still it was a fun race. I am looking forward even more to the world SS championships in Rotorua in October now, it should be a lot of fun.

I guess I will not be upgrading to the specific bike pictured as it was later used in the huffy/barbie bike toss event on Saturday afternoon.

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Sat, 28 Aug 2010

A Port Mac Mosey - 2010 Geoquest, photos and report - 21:13

Three of us in wetsuits heading for the gorge swim/trek (fullsize)
 The photo on the left is no the most common AR image, three of us in wetsuits (though it could happen in a canyoning leg also) but it captures a good race image I think. The photo is of course from my Geoquest race report, not as long as some it has 7800 words or so, 110 images and can be found on the 2010 Geoquest - Team iAdventure.com.au/iRule - A Port Mac Mosey page I put up.

We had an awesome support crew with Amanda and Prue, some support from a sponsor and a laid back attitude to the event. We were heading up there expecting to finish mid field, so it was a pleasant surprise to be higher up in the ranking. Fun was definitely had which is what matters most. Have a read if you are interested, it is a good event.

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